


clocktower tiles

by alliariondak (Sprytemark)



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, big sister Skuld agenda, finished stories are for squares (posts a 700 word isolated conversation thing as a fic), if I was a twelve year old kid in khux id have nightmares too, in the vaguest sense of the word, mentions of death (it’s khux)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:21:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprytemark/pseuds/alliariondak
Summary: It’s really not fair that they have to remember this.
Relationships: Skuld & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	clocktower tiles

“Hey, bud, it’s alright. You wanna tell me about it?”

Ven sniffles. “Really?”  
  
His voice is so small and trusting and quiet, like she’s offering him a cure, and not just... her, sitting on the floor of the clocktower at 2 in the morning. Ven had had a nightmare, and the clocktower was so big and so empty, and it was kind of a miracle Skuld wasn’t asleep and had found him shaking to pieces while she was going to get something from what passed as the tenth floor kitchen. She gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Yeah, I used to do this for— um, I’ve done it before.”

Used to do it for... oh, she can’t remember her name, that’s awful. They had all affectionately nicknamed her Kitty-cat, after the kitty ears and the socks she always wore. She was young, and shy, and wasn’t the strongest fighter but no one cared all that much, and she was prone to panic attacks.

She never stuck around her party for too long. A little hopeful part Skuld wonders if she’d recognize her, out in town, if she grew out of the kitty hat and the big sweater with sleeves that flopped over her hands, and the rest of her wonders if she was even chosen to make it at all.

Ven curls closer to her, there on the floor. “Um. I was inside, you know? For a long time. So I just dreamed I stayed there. When everyone else left.”

“Oh,” Skuld breathes. “You’re not there, though, you’re with me on the floor in the clocktower.”  
  
Ven nods, shakily. “Mmhmm.”

“Kinda smells like laundry in here. Did you do any today?”

“N-no.”

“I didn’t either. We should do that soon, we can hang them up since it shouldn’t be raining tomorrow.”

“Mm.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Um, Skuld?”

“Yeah, buddy?”  
  
“Where were... where were you? At— at the beginning, I mean. Did you... know?”

Skuld clears her throat. She wasn’t there for what happened after Daybreak Town started shaking, but she watched, from the safety of another realm.

“...In the courtyard, with the fountain in it. You know where that one is?”

“The big one?”

“Yeah, the big one. We gathered as many people as we could, and left before anything too bad started. We left the door open.”

“Oh.” He’s quiet again. “I-I’m sorry I wasn’t there on time.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I was inside.”

Skuld shifts so she’s not sitting on her leg for too long. Ven is watching the floor, very carefully, and holding her hand with all the strength in his tired little body. His are about the same size, actually. He might grow up to be taller than her. And he trusts her, that’s what it is, to catch whatever he really wants to say.

She’s not sure she’s qualified. She’s barely even processed anything for real, herself. But dang it, if she won’t try for Ven.

“Where inside?”

“‘N my room,” Ven whispers, very fast. “I got scared.”  
  
“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It got all loud all of a sudden, an’ the room got all... I think someone started fightin’ down there. I went upstairs. An’ I hid under my blanket.”  
He takes a deep, rather unsteady breath, but a more confident one than he had been taking. “Chirithy kept tellin’ me I had to go, but, I didn’t want to. I wanted to go to sleep, and wake up and go to the beach ‘cause I was gonna go to the beach, and I didn’t want the beach t’be gone too. S-so I stayed there until it, until it got really loud an’ I-I ran outside and the h-house got caught up in a big earthquake or somethin’ and it fell down and I went through the door with everyone else and I forgot my shoes,” Ven catches his breath — he’s crying again. “An’ I dreamed I didn’t leave and I stayed there.”

Skuld doesn’t respond but to pull him in closer. He’s stopped shaking, instead just turning his face into her arm.

“It was scary,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Skuld says, heavily. It’s not fair that they have to remember, she thinks, and then thinks they’re all lucky to be able to, and then thinks it isn’t fair again. She pulls Ven into her lap (younger than all of them, he doesn’t like it pointed out, though) and rests her head on his, blinking away the sudden burn in her eyes. The door was not open forever. He almost didn’t make it.  
  
It’s not fair, but she’ll stay here until morning if she has to.

**Author's Note:**

> me, having an epiphany: fanfic do not need to have a beginning middle or end I could just put my khux thoughts here and no one can stop me. maybe people will talk to me about khux (please talk to me about khux I’m @kicktwwice,


End file.
